Beating the limit bully?

[arabie]

My experience is in full 6 man and 10 man games. I started in a 6man, which fell down to 3man and a bit of headsup. There was one guy who from the start was raising with almost any hand he saw, J8o, Q2o, and other wild combinations. Funny enough, he'd often limp in with hands like KQo. This confused the hell out of me, and the fact that the cards were running his way gave him great table image. I tried to destroy it, but lost 50BB in 5/10 trying. Everytime i challenged him, the cards fell out of my favour. I'm not going to complain about bad beats, even though there were more then their fairshare.

My question is, how do you beat this kind of guy? He also just ran off and left after i took the slide, but i couldn't have expected him to stay for a sample size anyway. So knowing that might happen, what is the correct strategy?

[swede123]

Don't get suckered in. If there really is no pattern to his betting (which it sounds like there isn't) you just have to resort to playing your normal tight-aggressive game.
Don't chase with crap, don't get too mad when he sucks out, and if the cards just don't fall your way take a break from the game for a bit to avoid tilting.

Also, take copious notes on this clown, and be sure to follow him around next time he sits down. If he really plays like this all the time you will get your money back from him sooner or later - he can't stay hot forever.

Cheers,

Swede

[Sredni Vashtar]

Arabie,

You will find this generic type of player frequently in shorthanded games. And as you realize, they can be frustrating to deal with even though they are clearly playing poor strategy.

There are two components to dealing with this: strategic and psychological.

Psychologically, it may be of help to theoretically disarm such an opponent. Imagine an opponent raises most of his hands. Then he always bets the flop when its his turn.


Now many player get intimidated, angry, frustrated, and react badly to this type of opponent. But just think of it like this: think of his money going in as being involuntary. Think of the his money as an ante, a blind, a post. Are you frustrated and angry now? Pity the fool! He has to post a blind a straddle with almost every hand. And when bet to he has to do it again. Look at all the dead money. Poor sucker. When he draws out on you think of him being all in before the flop. He had no choice in the matter. Shrug.

When such a player is in the game, he can become the strategically dominant factor in the game. Players will start to attempt to isolate him. Others will check call him too much. Others will try to out maniac him. So the strategic entanglement becomes a fundamental issue.

If you have position on the maniac, attempt to three bet him to isolate. This is ABC standard poker. Don't become overly loose in your starters just because he's an idiot, because the players yet to act behind you will often join the fray. If you don't have position, raise anyway to let the maniac isolate himself.

There are two very general types of maniacs: One who will back down to aggression from you and ones who will not. Note, from you. He may very well back down from others but not you or vice versa. Some maniacs peg you as tight and that's what motivates them. To get you, the tightie to fold. They may very well not back down because of this. But don't worry too much about their motivations, just how to beat them.

When headsup:
Against maniacs who will back down and fold, you should can play a standard tight aggressive game where you bet hard, semi bluff and value bet liberally. Value betting is the key. Ace high on the flop? Probably raise. Middle pair? Monster! With this type you are usually better off going a bit slow on the flop with strong, and pounce on the turn and river. You don't want to let him off the hook too early. Alternatively, you can just mix in the strong bluffs and that will get the money too.


Against maniacs who will not fold to aggession, tailor your preflop hands to favor good showdown hands. Pairs, big cards. Pairs and big cards. the free cards, semibluffing, etc go out the window. (Keeping in mind that strong semibluffs are actually equity value bets too.) This guy is about pure value betting. Hammer him from the onset with any hand that likely has an advantage equity wise. You have started with better cards, and you will more likely end up with one in the end.


Multiway is where this gets fun. Now you employ entanglement. You use the maniac against the others on the table. You know he'll garbage raise so you adjust your bets to catapult others out of the pot, or trap them for muliple bets. Against the non folding type, you can't bluff. Obviously. But do the others know this? If they do you can make better folds, since you are sometimes in there a bit light, having hoped to blast out the real hand and chop of the cookies (dead money) with the maniac. Now if they don't know they can't bluff, this can be a bit tricky for you. Their two bad strategies can make your poker play not so easy to discern.

So while this little post won't help you that much, the best way to deal with this situation is to think about it. What will I do here? And there? What if? Imagine different scenarios playing out.

And have fun.

Sredni Vashtar.

[La Brujita]

Great post. Probably best post of the week at least.

[NoPepperJack]

An excellent answer, I was very curious what kind of answers he would get here. Yours has made some great points and I have learned from it.

Thanks,
Jack

[Sasnak]

Had this exact player join us last night and he ran through 60BB's within 20 minutes or so.

I was fortunate and caught him with a Q8o for a middle pair while I jammed the pot with AA and an Ace on the flop.

Two hands later I was blessed with AKs and hit 2 pair on the flop. We rammed and jammed and he showed a pocket 66.

He lost a few more huge pots he built with nothing more than a high card with coordinated boards. I've never seen anything like it. Only wish I drew a few more hands while he was around. I actually began to feel sorry for this guy, most likely he had some type of problem/issue going on.

[Smasharoo]

My question is, how do you beat this kind of guy? He also just ran off and left after i took the slide, but i couldn't have expected him to stay for a sample size anyway. So knowing that might happen, what is the correct strategy?


HEFAP pg 192. Also accept the fact that variance is excaptionally high playing this shorthanded and that 50BB, while not good for your sanity, is really well within the SD playing a LAG heads up.

Don't discount the fact, also, that he may be a very good HU/SH player playing CORRECTLY and he just beat you. When it's that shorthanded correct strategy begins to resemble LAG more and more.

[Wheezl]

Good post, If you have time could you take a look at the post that I made recently about a question/answer from SSHE. I have a question on a hand, and havent really gotten a solid answer yet.

Thanks.

[SA125]

n/m

[sin808]

great post. I have been running into more of these types of players lately playing heads up, but was having a hard time finding a good strategy to use against them. Thanks for helping point me in the right direction.